Embodiments of the inventive concepts described herein relate to technologies for providing notification information using Augmented Reality (AR).
A typical navigation terminal for vehicle is a system which embodies an Intelligent Transport System (ITS). The typical navigation terminal provides peripheral road situations to a driver of a vehicle by introducing position information using a Global Positioning System (GPS) satellite into the vehicle.
The typical navigation terminal detects position information of the vehicle using a satellite signal received from the GPS satellite, searches for previously stored map information using the detected position information, and displays a coordinate corresponding to the detected position information. As such, the typical navigation terminal provides map information relative to current position information of the vehicle such that the driver of the vehicle may receive detailed position information although a driving area is an unfamiliar area, thus increasing the convenience of the driver of the vehicle.
In addition, the navigation terminal guides the driver of the vehicle to prevent speeding in a speeding section by detecting cameras installed in a speed limit section in advance on a highway and informing the driver that a current driving section is the speed limit section. For example, Korean Patent Laid-Open Publication No. 2008-0080691 (Publication date, Sep. 5, 2008) discloses a “method for informing speed limit in a navigation terminal” which is technologies for calculating an average driving speed of a vehicle, which is being driven in a speed limit section, in real time, comparing the calculated average driving speed with a section speed limit, and providing warning notification when the average driving speed is over the section speed limit.
Meanwhile, Augmented Reality (AR) is one field of virtual reality and a computer graphic scheme for synthesizing virtual objects with a real environment to show the synthesized virtual objects like objects which are present in an original environment. AR supplements the real world and provides images in which a real environment and virtual objects are mixed, by overlapping and expressing virtual images with the real world. Therefore, AR may provide richer information to have a sense of reality by reinforcing additional information, which is difficult to be obtained in only the real world, to the real world.
AR technologies are applied in a navigation field. Recently, while a navigation terminal directly reproduces images of the real world captured by its camera on its monitor, it shows various driving information such as safe driving information, turn information, and distances using AR.
When there is a need for notification such as speeding or a caution on guiding driving, the navigation terminal guides driving states by displaying a separate pop-up window or applying a color reversal way or a color tone ON/OFF way to a driving guide screen.
However, a conventional method for expressing a driving state is an inefficient since a driving guide screen is hidden or a new design element is generated. Also, a navigation terminal using AR does not use characteristics and advantages of AR technologies properly.
Also, there is a conventional method for guiding a driving state on route lines depending on colors. However, this may be applied only when a route is set. When a vehicle is driven in a state where a route is not set, it is difficult to express a driving state in such a way that a route is set.